Friday, July 17, 2009
senior thesis artist statement
I am interested in the fundamental constraints of the body. That the human condition is one of intense self awareness, ambition and opportunism belies the elemental physical dependency of the body: we eat, we sleep, and we excrete. Intermittently, several times a day, we are reducible to unembellished physicality.
Collectively, we are caught in a cycle of dependency and productivity. We consume and expect to be able to keep consuming, without any binding condition of returning in equal amount what it is we have consumed. It would be absurd to suppose that we could live arithmetically- that in taking A we too had to give back some value equivalent to A. Imagine measuring the quantity of water used in a morning shower and needing to, in that same day, give that quantity to someone else; under the constraints of our daily routines, it is inconceivable. But it is similarly impossible since in giving resources we are taking them and designating another use for them. Giving and receiving then is a cyclical (and we hope) renewable exchange. They are activities to which we assign value.
These conditions shape my thesis work. The chance of our bodies to create their own sustenance lets us escape from being exclusively consumers. Unable to control what it is we create, or how much of it, we are conditioned to take bits from others and lend ours. A physical dialogue begins. My most recent body of work explores this possibility through utopian and dystopian scenarios. Instead of the body being simply a biological given, it now projects some civic responsibility. Yet while assured of our body’s production of nutritional product we are mindful of its imminent expiration- of it going bad. That these extensions could rot, go to waste and potentially infect other parts of our bodies complicates an otherwise productive metamorphosis.
Collectively, we are caught in a cycle of dependency and productivity. We consume and expect to be able to keep consuming, without any binding condition of returning in equal amount what it is we have consumed. It would be absurd to suppose that we could live arithmetically- that in taking A we too had to give back some value equivalent to A. Imagine measuring the quantity of water used in a morning shower and needing to, in that same day, give that quantity to someone else; under the constraints of our daily routines, it is inconceivable. But it is similarly impossible since in giving resources we are taking them and designating another use for them. Giving and receiving then is a cyclical (and we hope) renewable exchange. They are activities to which we assign value.
These conditions shape my thesis work. The chance of our bodies to create their own sustenance lets us escape from being exclusively consumers. Unable to control what it is we create, or how much of it, we are conditioned to take bits from others and lend ours. A physical dialogue begins. My most recent body of work explores this possibility through utopian and dystopian scenarios. Instead of the body being simply a biological given, it now projects some civic responsibility. Yet while assured of our body’s production of nutritional product we are mindful of its imminent expiration- of it going bad. That these extensions could rot, go to waste and potentially infect other parts of our bodies complicates an otherwise productive metamorphosis.
Body of work for my undergraduate thesis exhibition "Out of Necessity". Thanks to a successful proposal to building facilities personnel, it is still on view in the basement of the Rush Rhees Library, outside the IT Center. My speculations as to how an unlikely physical transformation might affect relationships and behaviors play out as a narrative, suggesting both utopian and more sinister results.
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